Shopping

A minute after Achilles had left the house, the old man still stood frozen in his position without moving. There were beads of sweat rolling down his cheeks.

Another minute passed, the old man fell down and landed with his butt on the floor, creating a loud sound that reverberated across the house.

He gasped greedily for air as he held his throat tightly with both his hands.

The old man managed to calm himself down after a few seconds more, but his breathing was still ragged and uneven.

'...Who the fuck was he!?'The old man thought to himself in puzzlement and fear.

Earlier he was finally having some decent sleep after a long full month of constant pressure.

He was an outer member of a very influential mafia within the city, due to his ability to create materials that perfectly resembled the originals as long as he completely understand every characteristic of them.

He used this ability to recreate rare materials for the mafia he worked under, sometimes people like Achilles also came to ask him to create forgery documents.

It had made his life become quite comfortable and smooth-sailing.

In recent months, however, his business was starting to slowly decline as he couldn't keep up with his clients' demands.

Just as he was close to figuring out a way to escape from this dilemma, Achilles came knocking on the old man's door and asked to create a fake ID and hunting license.

The former had asked for an unreasonable price that made the latter felt extremely angry.

He wanted to chase the kid out but he was desperate for a customer, so he couldn't afford to chase Achilles out.

He tried to negotiate with his customer for a different price but ended up having no choice other than agreeing to make the ID and hunting license for 1800 Nero.

After establishing a soul contract with Achilles, he thought that his day couldn't get any worse when suddenly the kid walked to his side and held his shoulder gently, the words he said shook the old man to the core.

He had heard many threats like this coming from his previous clients and normally wouldn't pay attention to them.

This time, however, he felt extreme terror and fear directed toward the young man after he had said those words.

It was as if the old man had experienced a glimpse of the darkness and hunger that was deeper than anything in existence.

After recomposing himself, the old man let out a small sigh before standing up with his feet still a bit trembling, he looked at the paper in his hand and said:

"Time to work I guess."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

'Thanks to me, I didn't have to pay an exorbitant amount of money.' Achilles thought to himself in relief as he walked out of the slums with steady footsteps.

He had successfully established the deal with the old man who would be making his fake paperwork.

Honestly, he thought that the chance of failing to get a good price was incredibly high because the intel he had eavesdropped on was that of 2 months ago.

Although the old man could have figured out a way to get out of his troubles and Achilles' efforts would have been for naught.

But luckily, fate was on his side.

Combined with the fact that the old man was in desperate need for money made it easy for him to corner the old man.

He still had to increase 200 Nero though, or the old man might have died on the spot if he kept insisting on his original price.

Now with that settled, he needed to do some shopping.

Achilles got out of the slums and got on a public transportation that headed to the city's center.

He got out of the ride after paying the fee and looked around left and right curiously.

He had never been to the city's center before, this place was usually where the middle-class citizens or higher resided.

The place was bustling with people walking back and forth, most of them wearing decent clothing and heading into the nearby tall buildings.

Multiple flying cars flew through the sky at an astonishing speed making Achilles' eyes widen in surprise, he had never expected to see this many flying cars at the same time.

He quickly snapped out of his stupor and walked with calm footsteps around the district, a few times along the way he tried to ask for directions but most people only gave him a look of scorn at his appearance and ignored him.

He managed to ask an elderly woman for the location he was looking for and slowly headed towards that place.

After a while, he arrived at a large shop with a hologram sign that said "Digital Devices".

'This must be it.' He thought to himself and walked to the entrance, the glass doors automatically opened as if inviting him to come inside.

Achilles moved inside the store and started looking around again out of curiosity. A few moments later, he noticed a figure approach him out of a corner of his eyes as the figure said in a friendly voice:

"Welcome to Digital Devices sir, how may I help you?"